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Children of Chinese origin have outperformed every other British group in English by the age of 11, according to an ethnic breakdown of exam and test results published yesterday, says the British Independent newspaper.

They have the best results of all ethnic groups in national curriculum tests at 11 with 86 per cent reaching the required standard. These figures include recent Chinese immigrants who do not have English as a first language. Schoolchildren of Indian origin come second with 85 per cent achieving the same standard - compared with 80 per cent of white British children.

Their success is carried through to GCSE level where 65.8 per cent of Chinese-origin pupils obtain five A*- to C-grade passes including maths and English - under the Department for Education and Skills’ new measure used to rank schools. Pupils of Indian origin also outperform the white British with a 59.1 per cent pass rate, compared to 44.3 per cent for white British pupils.

The figures are revealed in an analysis of last year’s GCSE and national curriculum test results for pupils aged seven, 11 and 14.

Girls outperform boys in all ethnic groups. Of all major etnic groups, Afro-Caribbeans, Pakistani and Bangladeshi underperform. Especially the performance of black boys is sparkling concerns. Fewer than one in four Afro-Caribbean boys (22.7 per cent) achieve five top-grade GCSE passes compared with 36 per cent of boys overall.

The breakdown follows an official report from the Department for Education and Skills, which drew attention to the exclusion rate for black Afro-Caribbean childeren - they were three times as likely to be excluded from school as white youngsters. Their rate of permament exclusions was four per 10,000 compared to 1,3 for white pupils. Again, Chinese-origin pupils had the lowest exclusion rate, with 0.2 per cent.

The analysis also showed that childern from better-off homes outperformed those pupils who received free shool meals: 61 per cent of those youngsters not in receipt of free school meals obtained five A*-to C-grade passes compared with 33% of those from deprived backgrounds.